no. >> i have been on food stamps and welfare. anyone bail me out? no, no, never, ever. thanks so much for watching. chris matthews and "hardball" is next. sabotage. let's play "hardball." ♪ good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. it's a down and dirty world when you decide chopping down the government and hurting the economy is the smart move. but bring it all down is now the hard right battle cry. slash spending, short the pentagon. crew up traffic control whatever raises the noise level, bashes the democrats and lowers hope. is this the tea party dream? is this john boehner's version of feeding time at the zoo,

giving the crazies what they want so they will sit in their seats and behave? is this final payment to insanity the last vestige of what calm republicanism is ready to cough up? but how else can you explain the readiness of the gop leadership to let this fraken stein's monster, it doomsday machine, this sequestration go all out berserk? how else can we understand the party of lincoln doing such economic damage to the republic, such damage and moral to the people. democrat ed rendell and republican michael steele. gentlemen, i want to start with you, michael, because i know you will disagree with me and that's what this is about. i read a lot of good reporting today, not analysis, but good reporting from your side of the aisle, further right than you i believe, that says, great, let's have sequestration. let's short the pentagon. let's cut $85 billion out of the hide of the economy. let's remove hope from the country, maybe risk a second dip because it all helps the republican party and the ideology of lower government,

less government. your thoughts. >> well, i doubt you read that they said well, you know, let's take hope out of the country and ruin the economy. but i get your point. what i find interesting in your argument, chris, is that you seem to overlook the fact that you have just as many democrats out there screaming the same thing on the left starting with someone like howard dean. you're also overlooking the fact that this whole idea of sequestration emanated out of the economic team of the white house. >> whoa, whoa, whoa. what office does howard dean hold right now? >> i'm saying you're pointing and saying this is just republicans talking about this. you have democrats in the senate and the house. you have democrats outside of the senate and the house who feel the same way, that maybe this is a moment that pushes both of these folks, the white house and the congress, to actually gibb to face -- >> which democrats want to -- i'm sorry, i want to check your facts, michael. i respect you. what democrats holding office in the congress want to cece

questions tration. >> well, the one whos voted for it starting with them. >> they don't -- they did it to force themselves something better. >> hold up. wait a minute, chris. you mean this whole thing got past just on republican votes. >> it was called kicking the can -- >> are you kidding? >> i'm going to ask you again do you believe right now there are any democrats in the house or snit who want to cece questions tration? >> yes. >> name one. >> there have been folks on the record, chris. i can't name one off -- >> just one. >> at the moment, but there are -- check the records. there are democrats on the record just as there are republicans now -- >> a lifeline out there. i hope they call in right now because you need a name. anyway -- >> chris, wait a minute -- no, chris, you're not going to -- >> name a name. >> give me a second. go ahead. >> okay. governor rendell, your thoughts. i think i know a lot of democrats who don't like sequestration because they're afraid it will not only cut the government, cut government spending, which is already a problem with reduced government joubs out there, but actually really hurt the economy, certainly morale of the country. your thoughts.

>> there's no question. think of it, it's alice in wonderland. democrats are fighting to make sure we don't have willy-nilly cuts that harm the military strength of the country and republicans are advocating for cuts that would severely diminish the military capability of our country. it's nuts, absolutely nuts. it is politics over what's good for the country. the president, chris, put a balanced solution of cuts, significant cuts, including entitlement cuts and raising revenue by making sure that everyone who makes $1 million pays a tax rate higher than the ordinary working person. what's wrong with that? that's what the polls say. >> that's wrong with that. >> "the new york times" suggested that congressional republicans are not concerned about how this fight will pan out for their party. they report, quote, house republicans say they are feeling invulnerable to the current clash, redistricting has made moth of them immune to political thets and entreaties for many

representing conservative district where the president holds little sway. an attack by president obama is a badge of honor. here is some of the tea party types we found today, just today, michael, who are backing the cuts. ohio congressman jim jordan said back in october, quote, i would say the only thing that's worse than cutting national defense is not having any scheduled cuts in place at all. louisiana congressman steve scalise told dow jones business news, quote, the con shen sus is we want the sequester numbers to come in and finally dereduced spending in washington. south carolina congressman mike mull vain yea said we want to keep the sequester in place and take the cuts we can get. georgia congressman paul br oun, i want to see it go into place and rand paul in his tea party response to the state of the union said not only should the sequester stand, many pundits say the sequester really needs to be at least $4 trillion to avoid another downgrade on america's credit rating. there you have a lot of people on the record, michael, on the republican side saying they want the sequester. i'm curious why you contend this

is not a partisan issue. >> because it isn't, chris. chris, it passed on a bipartisan vote. so unless you're telling me that those democrats including those in the white house who supported -- who originated this idea of sequestration are now saying that that vote didn't matter, that's just ludicrous. that's my only point. yes, republicans have come to a point where republicans are now saying, yeah, okay, let's see what -- >> i think a fair analysis of this is that the democrats who streeted for the sequestration, those who did thought that republicans would never put up with a big cut in defense. i think -- >> so they didn't mean it. they were just toying around with the economy. >> you could call it toying around. >> i can -- oh, yeah. >> i'm not defending everybody that votes -- >> look, you're not getting 9 democrats off -- you're not getting your side off the hook on this and dropping it all on the republicans' lap because that's the mantra and the spin you want to put on this. >> okay. >> both sides are equally

responsible -- >> i have to examine that phrase, my fat off the hook. i just found that incredible as a met fa for. it must be an old time expression. >> you're trying to get your fat off the hook. >> ier that's a barnyard expression i guess. governor rendell -- you've losted so much weight i don't think that counts. the fat off the hook. >> i think it means the meat off the grill so the fat doesn't burn away, am i right, michael. >> that works, too, governor. >> well, i want to ask michael one question. >> go ahead, take over. >> michael, and i agree with you, democrats did vote and support the sequester although i don't think many democrats, if any, would be for the sequester going into effect. but what is wrong with significant cuts in entitlements, more cuts than raised revenue when the only revenue we're raise something on millionaires to make sure that they pay the same tax rate or slightly higher than ordinary working people pay? what's wrong with that.

>> didn't we just do that? hey, governor, didn't we just do that last month? >> no, let me respond to that. let me respond to that. what we did the last time is we raised the rates but we didn't stop rich people from having their accountants and tax lawyers -- >> oh, lord. >> rip asunder that and wind up paying 15%. while a secretary pays 28%. >> you guys are just greedy. you're just greedy. you want to spend, you wnt to spend, you want to spend. you don't want to deal with the debt and this deficit. >> displan does deal -- >> two chairman fighting. let's look at the "hardball" scoreboard. let's look at the latest poll numbers from bloomberg. president obama is at 55% approval rating, i highest he's been since the first couple weeks of his administration bay back in '09. 55%, michael. let this sink in. 55% job approval. >> okay. >> i want it to sink in. >> what's your point? >> that's a point in itself. the republican party which you still represent vaguely is at 35% job approval. 35% for a political party that

needs 50% to stay in the business. look at this other number up to date. who is to blame for what's gone wrong in d.c. right now? 43% say congressional republicans. and by the way they're the ones you have to defend here, and 34% say obama and the democrats. i think these numbers are pretty scary if you have mr. boehner. >> chris, i'm not going to argue the politics on that. you're absolutely right. the messaging of the gop is quite frankly, sucked on this issue. there's no doubt about that. but it still doesn't change the underlying facts that democrats, including the newly elected -- re-elected president are on the hook for this just as much as the republicans are. neither side have effectively dealt with this. we've left simpson/bowles sitting on the sidelines. we've now had simpson/bowles two, no one is talking about that. sequester is something that both democrats and republicans put on the table. and now everyone is acting like, oh, my god, we're going to do this? come on. >> so the republicans are losing the fight over public opinion, governor. it's usually important in

politics, public opinion. >> it's not important until it's time for an election. >> and a the republicans are losing the fight and democrats are winning it, and the question is who is playing fair here? i don't think boehner is at fault. i think boehner's problem, and i use the phrase feeding time at the zoo very accurately. i think he's keeping the right wick of hi party now satisfied. they want the sequestration. they don't mind if government takes a big hit. that's what they have been trying to do for years. don't they benefit there 24? if you're in a far right wing district aren't you better off saying we wanted this and we got it, a big cut in government? >> that's true for the people in the far right districts but is it true for patrick meehan and fitzpatrick and dent in suburban philadelphia? i'm not so sure. i think they're risking losing the house. if john boehner had his druthers heened a the president back in august of 2011 would have entered into a grand bargain which would have had plenty of entitlement cuts, raised revenue, $5 trillion of debt reduction and we wouldn't be facing these problems.

but boehner took it back to the caucus and the caucus said no. >> is that fair? michael, what he just said? >> i think some of that is fair, yeah. i'm not going to play the whole partisan card here and jump up and down screaming because i'm on your show. no, i think some of that is fair. >> you don't have to do that. you never do that. >> i never do that, but i think some of it -- just to bring it back into the real, i mean, i get the whole partisan game of wanting to put the blame on one side, but you know at the end of the day, that poll notwithstanding, the president also risked coming out of this thing on the second of march a little bit more bloodied than he is today as do the democrats. >> they're all going to get hurt but i do believe if the republican party were a united party today of the slightly or somewhat center right, a bit to the right, maybe a couple notches, it could come to terms -- >> you're going to give us just a couple notches? that's it. just a couple notches? >> how far right do you want to

go? >> until i'm comfortable. >> i think it isn't a bargaining party. that's the problem and the priz needs somebody to bargain with like the israelis when they have a good government kand find somebody on the other side of the river to deal with. >> like i said, when i come into the room to bargain with you i want you to still be in the room and the president has often times left the room, too. >> i want to say, chris, the president has no fat on the grill. he has no fat on his body at all. >> fat on the hook? michael, let's get the met fa for. foot on the hook? >> fat on the hook. >> what in god's name what does it mean? >> i think it's on the waterfront. i think it's how rod steiger ended up with that movie. thank you michael and et. coming up, the karl rove schadenfreude express. he was bush's brain, the architect, the evil genius. then came 2012, now the tea party has declared war and progressives are as happy as hell munching on popcorn and watching this whole spectacle. karl rove is in the middle of trouble. also, here is the latest

critique of the gop appearing in today's "washington post." the party has become to extreme, too ideological, it's position is irresponsible. you might expect it from nancy pelosi but it's from virginia's lieutenant golf bilboing. it's republican lieutenant governor by the way and things are pretty bad when republicans are talking that way about their party. and are prisoner the at guantanamo getting federal benefits? no. it's an online joke that some republicans fell for. let me finish with what happened to the republican party of the 1960. it was all about civil rights, all for voting for civil rights and voting rights. you should see the numbers. today it's the party of reince priebus and all that voter suppression. i'm going into that at the end of the 140e. the good republican party on civil rights and today's party. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. more than two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we've shared what we've learned,

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the senate no republicans further to the left of the most conservative democrat. totally polarized parties. joe manchin of west virginia is the most conservative democrat but he's to the left of the most liberal republican, scott brown of massachusetts who is no longer in the senate. the most liberal senators, new mexico's tom udall and richard blumenthal in connecticut. jim rich of idaho is the most conservative. there he is all by himself. we'll be right back. mom? i know you got to go in a minute but this is a real quick meal, that's perfect for two! campbell's chunky beef with country vegetables, poured over rice! [ male announcer ] campbell's chunky soup. it fills you up right. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." politicking of course can be a blood sport and karl rove's critics must smell blood in the water. democrats liked "w's" brain or the so-called architect or bush's brain but now it's conservatives who are on the attack. a popular tea party group doctored up a photo of rove in a nazi uniform. of course, they later apologized but that picture is out there. on fox news sunday journalist bod woodward slammed his new venture to broaden the base by selecting more winnable candidates for office. let's watch that.

>> you're going to set yourself up as a kind of politburo vetting these candidates. i mean -- >> no, no, no. >> the whole theory of republicanism is to let the local state or district decide. >> i think rand paul had a right. everybody has a chance. we believe in markets. let people go in and participate. it's the opposite of polpolitbu. >> rove waited three days to jab back at woodward. >> the last time i checked the politburo was the ruling body of the soviet communist party which enslaved hundreds of millions of people, oversaw the extermination of tens of millions of people and during the cold war threatened the united states with nuclear anile san diego. just because woodward is a sort of center left journalist he can get away with calling me a communist and nobody is bothered by that. >> well, the source for rove's troubles with the right are the result of spending hundreds of millions on losing candidacies and then lecturing the tea party

on how to win. john feehery is a republican strategist and wayne slater is the co-author of "bush's brain." let's go to this, i want to go to an expert, wayne, about this guy, karl rove. i don't know much about karl rove, believe it or not. but it seems for me for him to wait three days and then have a big bee in his bonnet about the word politburo as if bob woodward meant to call him a commie. victimhood used to be a democrat specialty. what's he doing this for? gee, whiz, he's calling me a communist. he only thought of it three days later. no problem at the time. go ahead. your thoughts. >> that's the surprise. he really is usually much faster than this in his response. he's quick to call himself something a victim. he finds himself a victim of his own making, the making here is that he created or was part of the creation of a coalition bringing on social conservatives and protoe tea party types who have now turned on him because they feel used after the bush

years and now the millionaire/billionaires who gave him all this 3 hundred and what, 28 million dollars feel used. so he's basically fallen into a trap and when somebody says i'm like a pot little burro, he's really more like a 19th century mon nop list. i want to be the guy who decides everything. >> do you think people were madder at him, john, or madder at bernie madoff? who are they maddest at? his percent return -- wait, his return on $100 investment, as if anybody only gave him $100, was $1. that's a $1. that's $99 lost. you got it? >> karl rove is a very smart political strategist. >> what happened? >> he was right on the immigration debate well before a lot -- >> how -- >> he helped design a governing coalition for george bush that won two elections. the problem is the republican party, the republican establishment, but the whole party -- >> let's not change the subject. i want to enjoy this for a moment. here he was with megan kelly making megan kelly look even

better than she is. let's get a little look at this, please, if we can. >> do you believe that ohio has been settled? >> no, i don't. it may be that barack obama wins the state, but it seems to me that, you know, you got a lot of votes yet to cast. >> you tell me whether you stand by your call on ohio given the doubts karl rove called. >> we're quite comfortable with the call in ohio. >> he have megan kelly winning her polk award basically because of him. >> he wasn't the only one. almost every conservative, including me, thought we were going to win this election and we were all surprised when -- >> did you go in and question the returns? did you question the analysis of the returns like did he. >> i didn't but i didn't have the data 37. >> did he? >> karl rove is a smart guy. i usually -- i think -- >> did he think he could bully them out of their prediction? >> i thought he was stunned. i think we were all stunned and then you know what -- juneau the guy personally. i thought he went into the room thinking he could talk the analysts out of the results. his willpower would somehow overwhelm them. megan and the other guys. >> i remember sitting at a table

in 1990 in new hampshire talking about -- filling owe ought napkin about why with great sets of numbers george bush was going to win the new hampshire primary. he lost the new hampshire primary. karl wins some and karl loses some. >> no question. >> but you're right, the force of his personality, the force of sort of the intellect, and the reputation allows him a lot of times to bully folks. he's certainly tried to bully me. >> well, bullies are almost like, you know, sonny liston, they can't lose until they can't win, you know what i mean? liston couldn't be beaten as a boxer until he couldn't win again and then mohammed knocked him out. newt gingrich -- who is more likable, he or karl rove? anyway karl gingrich slammed karl rove so he could make winnable elections. here he is in an op-ed piece in the human events. gingrich is reduced to writing there. he was simply wrong last year. he's talking about wrob. he was wrong about the presidential race. watch a video of his blowup on

fox election night about fox knauss calling ohio for president obama. he was also wrong about senate races, republicans lost winnable senate races in montana, north dakota, ohio, wisconsin, pennsylvania, virginia, and florida. so what's this karl rove getting attacked by all sides, the establishment, people like -- i don't know if they have an establishment but getting hit by everybody now. >> he's getting blamed for everything and it's not his fault. he had a lot of money and there was lot of things co-have done better. the big problem for the republicans is they spent so much money on campaign ads and not enough money about organization. the one thing about barack obama that republicans attacked is the fact he was a community organizer. we could use a community organizer. >> i think the problem is you don't know where to go with your base which could cause problems in the general or fight your base and lose them. isn't that the problem? if they white the wacko right and say we don't want you, they say we'll go third party somewhere. >> what they want to do, karl has over the years cultivated

the far right of the party for particular gain, but now after a time they realize it's really a problem. i mean, john is right, look, karl, as you know, is a very, very, very smart guy but when i see him attacking ashley judd trying to make fun of ashley judd as a potential candidate in kentucky, then i have to ask has the mighty fallen here? is this really what it's all about? >> yeah, and she was good in "double indemnity." >> that could be a mistake. >> she was actually -- she was actually great gsh. >> "double jeopardy." >> in the movie "bug" where she called herself into a room and was fearing something terrible was going to come in and get her and now we know it was karl rove. >> well done. like the way you wove that together with rove. thank you, john feehery, thank you, wayne slater. we have much more on karl rove on the website. be sure to check us out on facebook as well. republicans fall for another fake news story.

they keep falling for these. i think they want to. could it be they want to believe this nonsense. you won't believe what they believe. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ male announcer ] this one goes out to all the allergy muddlers.

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on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour three. zyrtec®. love the air. back to "hardball." now to the "sideshow." early this week i told you that the state of mississippi only just got around to officially ratifying the 13th amendment to the constitution which bans slavery. well, a professor went to see the movie lrng and did so the research afterwards and it was discovered even though lawmakers voted to ratify in 1995, the paperwork was never filed. well, jon stewart went back to where it all began, 1865. ♪ >> hello. greetings and salutations.

my name is jon stewart and given the times, i'm obviously neither jewish nor on television. the state of georgia has voted to ratify the 13th amendment. oh, delightful. being the 27th state to so vote, the amendment is nationally adopted and slavery is abolished in these united states. there remains a few stragglers. i'm looking at you magnolia state. how much longer are you going to wait? 148 years, that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? >> after 148 years the state of mississippi has finally ratified the 13th amendment. >> so, mississippi, two things on the recent ratification. first, better late than never. and, second, this is pretty [ bleep ] late. >> he's unbelievable. a late start and a very late finish but at least it got done. next, conan o'brien will be hosting this year's white house correspondents dinner in d.c. in late april. he headlined the event in '95

for bill clinton. according to the reviews at the time scored hurricanes of laughter. you you might need to get in your own way back machine to recognize the setup material. >> i am honored to be a part of this event though. when i got the invitation i was thrilled i would be speaking in the same room with the most powerful man in the country, and well then i heard judge ito canceled. but you move on. >> judge ito for those who forgot was the judge in the o.j. simpson murder case. here is one from the political scene at a time when many democrats were becoming republicans. >> the first announcement is for the democratic congressmen present. please refrain from switching parties during the dinner. it's very confusing to your waiter, all right? i understand nathan deal got the same dessert twice. we got to work that out. >> nathan deal.

he was one of the democrats who switched from democrat to republican after the '94 midterm election. a loss for the blue team. by the way the danger right there is the danger of using topical material. it goes away. finally, check out the headline from this military news blog. guantanamo bay prisoners to receive gi benefits. hopefully red flags are going up, right? this is a military news parody. a website called the duffle blog. the same idea as the onion but the stories are military related. one citizen fell victim to the joke and sent a letter to mitch mcconnell. was the issue put to rest by mcconnell's office? not quite. the senator bucked the question to the pentagon and here is a look at the letter courtesy of wired magazine. i am writing on behalf of a constituent who has contacted me regarding guantanamo bay prisoners receiving post-9/11 gi bill benefits. i would appreciate your review

and response to my constituent's concern. well, in some alternate reality where the whole thing were true, wouldn't it be more than a single constituent's concern that gi benefits were going to terrorists? anyway, somebody in mcconnell's office called it a humorous misunderstanding. you think? another headline on duffle blog's site reads, syria to host iraq war re-enactors. what people will believe. the gullible out there. up next, the republican party has lurched too far to the right. it's one thing to hear a democrat say it, but a republican? and that's ahead. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. [ creaking ] [ male announcer ] trophies and awards lift you up. but they can also hold you back. unless you ask, what's next? [ zapping ] [ clang ] this is the next level of performance. the next level of innovation.

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[ male announcer ] could've had a v8. 100% vegetable juice, with three of your daily vegetable servings in every little bottle. a hairline fracture to the mandible and contusions to the metacarpus. what do you see? um, i see a duck. be more specific. i see the aflac duck. i see the aflac duck out of work and not making any money. i see him moving in with his paren up next, the republican dvs out of the back of a van. dude, that's your life. remember, aflac will give him cash to help cover his rent, car payments and keep everything as normal as possible. i see lunch. [ monitor beeping ] let's move on. [ male announcer ] find out what a hospital stay could really cost you at aflac.com.

i'm mary thompson with your cnbc market wrap. the doe closed the psychological

important 14,000 mark again. the s&p 500 finished down 9 and the nasdaq fell 32. walmart edged up but the retailer warns higher payroll tacks and gas prices could spell trouble ahead. and it's a seller's world again. the national association of realtors says the numbers of home for sale dropped to a 13-year low but buyers are still on the prowl. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now back to "hardball." ♪ welcome back to "hardball." it's not unusual to hear someone say the republican party has become to extremely and unwilling to compromise. millions of voters said that on election day. but when an elected republican off holders says it it's news. enter virginia's lieutenant governor bow billing. he said not every government program is bad and not everyone who receives a public benefit is

a free loader. it's just a challenging time for the republican party when a conservative mainstream guy like me doesn't really feel comfortable with his party. the party has moved too far and it's become too extreme and too ideological. that's from the lieutenant governor of virginia. that's comments don't seem as surprising when learn bill bolling is considering a run as an independent. right now former clinton adviser teri mcauliffe is tied with virginia attorney general ken cuccinelli at 38% even. if bolling runs as an independent, he starts out with 13% to start with and could go higher, of course, much higher. but what makes his remarks so remarks is he's saying the republican party is becoming too extreme for even conservative republicans. tom davis is a former u.s. congressman from virginia who also ran the republican congressional campaign committee, and chris cillizza is managing editor of post politics.com and an msnbc political analyst. i want to go to chris for the tight political analysis right now. this guy bolling gave a great interview to the post and just to put it in context, he slam

banged his republican party as everything you hear on this show a lot of times. too far over, too intransigent, everything bad, won't negotiate, won't do anything for the country. is that to set himself up as a centrist or slightly center right candidate as a general election independent candidate or is that just what he believes and he's angry? >> well, look, i take him at his word. i'm not going to question his motives. i think -- >> that's all we do here. go ahead. >> i think it is what he probably believes. 's more establishment guy but context matters. look, this is a guy who in 2009 got pushed out of the race for governor by bob mcdonnell because bob mcdonnell was more conservative and better positioned to win the race. he stepped aside with the expectation from everyone in the republican party that in 2013 he'd be the guy. well, among comes ken cuccinelli and the reality is it's a convention there, a very small group of people, activists, conservatives by and large that pick the nominee. even in a primary i'm not sure bill bolling beats ken

cuccinelli. so i think some of it is that he's kind of angry at the way in which his political fortunes have played themselves out but i think part of it, too, is an expression of the kind of establishment for lack of a better word within the republican party who looks at some of the folks in a more conservative wing and says these folks are pushing us to a place that is going to get us losing elections, never getting the hispanic vote, and going to relegate us to minority party status nationally for the future and we got to speak out. so i think it's a little bit of what he plefs and a little bit of his own circumstances that have made him more willing to speak ut 37. >> i always see you as more of a middle of the road republican. the question is what happened to your state and you may lose an easy one. you could beat terry mcauliffe. he's a democrat. >> should beat him. nine straight times our governor has come from the opposite party of the president. right now it's a close race but if history is any judge, republicans should win it. >> they tend to reverse. >> these are nationalized elections for governor.

and mcdonnell has problems with his thesis. it just didn't take. voters were more interested in taking a message to washington. that's been the repeated theme in virginia gubernatorial races. ? >> i keep thinking it's the old question of politics. to go to your intensive hardline base risking losing some of the softer republicans in the middle and independents but knowing your crowd will show up or you bring on a guy that's considered too watery a republican or democrat and risking the fact your base won't show up. >> i think the calculation this time is the fact that this is an off-year election and you want to intensify your base and bring it out in virginia. >> because it's not the general electorate. >> if everybody shows up, we know there are more democrats than republicans. obama has proven that twice. but if you look at the off-year turnout models, it's been much more republican. >> so work your base hard makes sense. so kuch nellie makes more sense. for you that's an odd thing to say. i'm just talking about the raw political calculation. you still need to holgd your party together.

the last poll only showed 3% of republicans defecting. there will be so much money going back and forth. >> how does this vaginal thing, that crazy thing about requiring things to have abortion how is that working in this state? >> i'm sure it's going to be in a lot of tv ads but kuch nellie didn't vote on that. he was the attorney general but a lot of legislators will have to defend that. >> bill bolling also told the post, the lieutenant governor of virginia who says he's not going to run in the primary, it seems these day that is caroms is a four-letter word in many people's eyes. they view it as a signs of weakness but in real it's the essence of a workable democracy. chris, you and i cover this all the time. he's talking the way the most middle of the road journalists call it, not knocking the right but saying you have to be able to negotiate. if you don't compromise on a lot of middle of the road things how are you going to get anything done? obviously there's some things you will never compromise on. >> and, chris, i would say -- i

actually think take immigration and marco rubio. marco rubio is not a guy i think most people would describe as a centrist moderate but this is a guy who on immigration is saying, look, i understand that there's a part of the party that's never going to be happy with any kind of path to citizenship, but we have to come together at some point on some of these big issues if we're going to move forward as a country. so i actually think it's beyond just kind of the jon huntsmans and michael bloombergs of the world. i think haley barbour the former mississippi grve and republican national chairman has said, look e we're going to have to find some common ground. may not like obama and where we stand on the issue but we have to find some common ground just to move the country forward and keep us sort of viable in the world of economy. >> chris, i think you're more hopeful than me. i think the hard right being hard right, i watch that scened in ast the other day, i think those people standing up to a guy like john mccain showed the republican party is definitely ruled almost by its hardest right, the hardest right seems

to scare everybody else out. i have yet to hear an elected office official take on rush limbaugh ever on any issue. it's still the hard right that makes the noise. thank you. not thom davis, not a member of the hard right. up next, republicans have been trying to to make it harder for minorities to vote and now the supreme court of the united states is considering whether a key part of the 1965 voting rights act should be struck down. that's section five. that's the one that makes every state check out any changes in its election law with the justice department. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios we don't let frequent heartburn come between us and what we love. so if you're one of them people who gets heartburn and then treats day after day... block the acid with prilosec otc and don't get heartburn in the first place! [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn.

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the senator frank lautenberg of new jersey is set to retire next year. newark mayor corey book ser in good shape to win that seat. and geraldo rivera may want to think twice before getting in the race. booker would trounce rivera 59% to 23%. rivera has started to make some noise about running as a republican but these numbers may give him pause. we'll be right back. more than two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy.

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cases the supreme court hear this is term will be argued next wednesday and it involves protects the most sacred right americans possess, the right to vote. today in a radio interview with joe madison, president obama himself reflected on its significance. >> by passing the voting rights act, what you did was to ensure that those regions of the country, those areas that had a history of preventing african-americans or ma tee knows or other ethnic groups from voting, they would have to be cleared by the justice department in any changes they had to their voting practices. if section five of the voting rights act is struck down, then that preclearance process would go away, and, you know, there's some parts of the country where, obviously, folks have been trying to make it harder for people to vote.

>> well, there are nine states covered by section five of the voting rights act. there they are. mostly southern which the president talking about. the states in yellow. it's also affected some counties in these additional states in green. you can see that for a total of 16 states. in the 2012 election section five protections played a crucial role in preventing minority voters from being disinen from franchised in texas and in florida. ryan is director of the naac p legal defense and education fund. he represents parties involved in next wednesday' supreme court hearing. and julie fernandez is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the department of justice's civil rights division. she's now a senior policy analyst at the hope and society foundation. let me start with ryan, mr. hey goode on this thing, put it together. we've talked a lot about on this show which i have talked about in the last year is what i didn't like being done in my home state of pennsylvania where i came from and other states like florida where i could see what looked like clearly

discriminatory efforts where you had the head of the pennsylvania legislature, the republican guy, coming out and basically saying if we get this voter photo i.d. law, we're going to win the state, in other words it's going to discriminate against superficially democrats but we all know he meant urban minorities. number, two you see the same thing in

. >> that are kov herbed by sector five are those places where voting discrimination has, overtime, been most intense and most persistent and most adaptive. so in the past election, we saw section five of the voting rights act strike discriminatory changes in the state of texas, in the state of south carolina and in florida. this is states like pennsylvania, as you mentioned, chris, or wisconsin or ohio, states that are not covered by the voting rights act don't also experience voting discrimination. what congress realized is that the type of discrimination that e see in the coverage jurisdictions, those sections covered by section 5 where discrimination is most intense and where congress needed to have the strongest antibiotic to cure the racist discrimination in those coverage jurisdictions. >> let me bring this in here. since 2010, not long ago, state

legislatures made it harder to vote in these 17 states whether imposing new restrictions on voter registration drives. julie, i thought -- i'm not a lawyer like you guys, but i thought the idea of voting rights was a remedy. we're talking about people that have done bad things in the past. and thoo's why there's a justification for federal intervention. but i think there's some new culprits out there. is it fair under due process or equal protection to point out to certain states that maybe doing bad, because they've done bad, but excludeing out to other states that have done bad, like pennsylvania. >> well, first of all, voting rights act applies to the whole country. it's based on race everywhere. 51 a very particular remedy to a particular type and kind of discrimination that we saw most in the states that are part of

the geographic reach of section 5. when congress passed the voting rights act in '65, we have to get a sword to people to be able to stop voter discrimination. it is recalcitrant where once you push down, it's like a whack-a-mole. so they need to have a remedy that ensures that that stops it. >> one is local, one is whites want to run the show. you know better than i do how the game is played any other trick in the world. but what i also noticed, that kind of what you call racial discrimination is political discrimination. this isn't about screwing the blacks, necessarily, this is just to make sure that their candidate wins the state. it's not that old souther thing. it's just pure, raw, political gai gai gainsmanship. >> this is old poison in a new

bottle. people are less likely or more likely to have the type of idea. but what we also saw in the past presidential election is where there was a proliferation of voter tactics outside the states covered by section 5. so in pennsylvania or ohio or wisconsin, there we saw the state level remedies and, to julie's point, section 2 was enough to cure the discriminatory change at issue. but in the jurisdictions covered by section 5, congress realized that those places were the one that discrimination, over time, had been the most resis tent to change and required the strongest aebt biotic. >> one answer, julie, are you going to win or not? >> we are going to win. >> we'll actually win because four times, the supreme court has recognized the constitution under voting rights act, congress developed a 15,000 page

record in support of the voting rights act. and, chris, the experience of our clients and millions of voters on the ground in the jurisdictions all point to section 5 in this challenge. >> thank you, sir. great to have you on. thank you both for coming on and we'll be right back. [ bop ] [ bop ] you can do that all you want, i don't like v8 juice. [ male announcer ] how about v8 v-fusion. a full serving of vegetables, a full serving of fruit. but what you taste is the fruit. so even you... could've had a v8. thto fight chronic. osteoarthritis pain. but what you taste is the fruit. to fight chronic low back pain. to take action. to take the next step. today, you will know you did something for your pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is a pain reliever fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior

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let me finish tonight with this. what happened to the republican

party of the 1960s. what happened to them? what happened to that republican party? for the civil rights act, a republican vote in the u.s. senate was 27-6. in the house, it was 136-35. four out of five republican members in both houses for civil rights. for the voting rights to follow, the republican vote in the senate was 30-2. overwhelming in all cases. i'm watching this debate over the voting rights act and i'm struck with the reality that the reason for today is the republican party. not the party of the 1960s. but the one that's backed voter suppression efforts in dozens of states and keeps on doing. every time a state passes another bill making it harder to vote, cutting down on voter days, exz e exz tending voter id requirements, you have to wonder are they doing precisely what the voter rights act was designed